Approximately 17 advocates, stakeholders, and City staff were present at the last BPIT meeting on October 1st in the Controller’s Office Conference Room in City Hall East. The workshop included discussion on the prioritization of the Neighborhood Streets Network as part of the new Mobility Plan 2035.

Implementation Update

Michelle Mowery from LADOT gave a brief implementation update announcing the successful installation of three miles of new buffered bicycle lanes on Colorado Boulevard. In addition to the ‘Dodgers Bus Lane’ along Sunset Boulevard, this is the first major project to be installed as part of the First Year of the Five Year Implementation Strategy (and recently joined by 7th St). The buffered bicycle lanes installed along Colorado Boulevard are a critical phase in completing the 2010 Bicycle Plan Backbone Bicycle Network in the Northeast Area.

Neighborhood Network Prioritization Exercise

Building off of previous BPIT workshop activities related to neighborhood streets, David Somers, from Department of City Planning presented draft maps of priority backbone and neighborhood streets networks that are proposed to be included in Mobility Plan 2035. The five priority network maps represent five geographies of the City that include Central-East LA, South LA, West LA, the Valley and the Harbor. The intent of the maps is to highlight a subset of the Backbone and Neighborhood Networks that demonstrate high network connectivity, and to select those facilities to prioritize, in addition to the grading criteria, in the Bicycle Plan implementation process.

BPIT members asked questions after the presentation of the prioritized network maps. BPIT participants discussed the feasibility of some of the treatment design options, the importance of connecting to transit stations, if the priority network would present a disconnect between implemented facilities and what is used by bicycle riders, and if the Mobility Plan is the right planning level to select priority lanes given the fine grain details and neighborhood support needed to select the routes that should receive the neighborhood street treatments. Participants also expressed desire for a network performance metric for proposed or installed bicycle facilities.

BPIT participants then divided and gathered around tables organized by the geographies, and added their feedback on priority network maps, adding notes of the constraints and opportunities presented by the specific neighborhood network corridors.

Active Streets LA

Eric Bruins from LACBC announced an upcoming Active Streets LA workshop on October 19th at Budlong Elementary School. Active Streets LA is a partnership with LACBC, Trust South LA and LADOT, whose aim is to work with community members in South LA to create safe walking and bicycle routes along their neighborhood streets.